A CONVICTED brothel madam will not have to pay back another penny of the £125,000 she made selling young girls for sex, a court has ruled.

Myra Forde was jailed in 2009 and told to pay back £25,000 of the profits she had made running a prostitution ring from her home in Meadow Road, Salisbury, after a judge ruled it was all she could afford.

But fresh attempts by prosecutors to claw back more of her illicit gains were thwarted when a judge ruled in Forde’s favour at Salisbury Crown Court on Friday.

It comes after Forde hit national headlines last year for her part in the child sex abuse scandal surrounding former prime minister Edward Heath.

It was alleged that Wiltshire Police quietly dropped a case against her in the early 1990s when she threatened to make public allegations that she had been “supplying young boys” to Heath.

Despite telling the Journal that she knew nothing about the ex-MP, Forde later claimed in a national media interview that she had supplied Heath with adult male prostitutes.

On Friday, the crown claimed Forde could pay back a further £60,000 under the Proceeds of Crime Act if she sold her £185,000 house, the same property she ran as a brothel in the 1990s. Under the law any cash earned as a result of, or in connection with, an offence can be recovered.

But her lawyer successfully argued that she could not pay another penny, as she still owed her brother in the Philippines, Manuel Pablico, £62,000.

He said it was “highly unlikely” the signed document on the debt had been forged, as the prosecution suggested.

“Having accepted the genuineness of this document, it would not be in the interests of justice for any sum of money to be added to the confiscation order,” he said. “It seems to me, on the evidence, it is a genuine £60,000 debt.”

Forde said she spent half the loan starting a handbag business, which later failed, and the rest to pay her £25,000 proceeds of crime bill, plus mortgage payments.

The crown cast doubt on the loan, questioning whether a document signed by Forde and Mr Pablico was genuine.

Forde took to the witness stand, where her evidence was criticised as “a mess” by prosecutor Barry McElduff.

Judge Alastair Malcolm QC accepted that Forde’s evidence had not been “particularly persuasive”, but said it was “highly unlikely” the signed document had been forged.

And he said accounting records from her solicitor at the time proved there was “no question” that her brother had at least lent her £25,000 to pay the courts in 2010.

“It would not be in the interests of justice for any sum of money to be added to the confiscation order,” he said.

“It seems to me, on the evidence, it is a genuine £60,000 debt.”

Forde, who served half a fiveyear jail term in 2009, is also being investigated for benefit fraud in London. She allegedly claimed more than £50,000 in housing benefit, without disclosing the rental income from her Salisbury property.

The investigation is ongoing.